How to Install mlocate (locate and updatedb Commands) on CentOS 6

One of the best tools for quickly finding files by filename is the locate command. The locate command reads one or more databases prepared by updatedb and writes file names matching at least one of the patterns to standard output, one per line.

Pre-Flight Check

These instructions are intended specifically for installing mlocate on CentOS 6.

I’ll be working from a Liquid Web Self Managed CentOS 6 server, and I’ll be logged in as root.

Step 1: Install mlocate

As a matter of best practice we’ll update our packages:

yum -y update

Then let’s install mlocate and any required packages:

yum -y install mlocate

Step 2: Updating mlocate

The following command will update the search databases:

updatedb

mlocate installs a cron job that will run daily to update search databases at:

/etc/cron.daily/mlocate.cron

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